[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 8 (Friday, January 12, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1553-1555]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-310]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

    In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed 
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration will publish periodic summaries of proposed 
projects. To request more information on the proposed projects or to 
obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the SAMHSA 
Reports Clearance Officer on (240) 276-1243.
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of 
information are necessary for the proper performance of the functions 
of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology.
Proposed Project: Independent Evaluation of the Community Mental Health 
Services Block Grant Program--NEW
    The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
(SAMHSA), the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) administers the 
Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (CMHS BG). The Community 
Mental Health Services Block Grant was funded by Congress to develop 
community-based systems of care for adults with serious mental illness 
(SMI) and children with severe emotional disorders (SED), and has been 
the largest Federal program dedicated to improving community mental 
health services. States have latitude in determining how to spend their 
funds to support services for adults with SMI and children with SED. 
The only requirements outlined in the authorizing legislation for State 
receipt of CMHS BG funds are provisions to increase children's 
services, create a State mental health planning council, and to develop 
a State mental health plan to be submitted to the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services (HHS). The State mental health planning council is 
to comprise various State constituents including providers, 
administrators, and mental health services consumers. Each State plan 
must:
    <bullet> Provide for the establishment and implementation of an 
organized community-based system of care for individuals with mental 
illness.
    <bullet> Estimate the incidence and prevalence of adults with SMI 
and children with SED within the State.
    <bullet> Provide for a system of integrated services appropriate 
for the multiple needs of children.
    <bullet> Provide for outreach to and services for rural and 
homeless populations.
    <bullet> Describe the financial and other resources necessary to 
implement the plan and describe how the CMHS BG funds are to be spent.
    In addition, Congress included a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) 
requirement that a State's expenditures for community mental health 
services be no less than the average spent in the two preceding fiscal 
years.
    The CMHS BG received an adequate rating on the OMB PART in 2003. 
Clearly in the follow up period to that assessment, one of the critical 
areas that must be addressed is the expectation that an independent and 
objective evaluation of the program is to be carried out initially and 
at regular intervals. In addition, the program evaluation has been 
designed to be of high quality, sufficient scope and unbiased (with 
appropriate documentation for each of these elements). In fact it is in 
addressing an evaluation of the program that critical elements of 
accountability and program performance are also identified and 
initially assessed. The rigor of the evaluation is seen in how it 
addresses the effectiveness of the program's impact with regard to its 
mission and long term goals. By legislative design the CMHS BG Program 
has previously focused on legislative compliance. Now it addresses the 
impact of the program nationally, over time, with a view to coming to 
terms with identified program deficiencies and the corresponding impact 
of proposed changes.
    In this evaluation, a multi-method evaluation approach is being 
used to examine Federal and State performance with regard to the CMHS 
BG and its identified goals. This approach emphasizes a qualitative and 
quantitative examination of both the CMHS BG process (e.g., activities 
and outputs in the logic model) and system-level outcomes whereby 
Federal and State stakeholder perspectives on the CMHS BG, as captured 
through semi-

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structured interviews and surveys, are corroborated and compared to the 
considerable amount of already-collected source documents provided by 
States and CMHS (e.g., State plans, implementation reports, review 
summaries and monitoring site visit reports). More specifically, data 
collection will be conducted using four primary strategies: interviews 
and surveys of key stakeholders, data abstraction from source documents 
(i.e., CMHS BG applications and implementation reports), secondary data 
analysis (e.g., analysis of Uniform Reporting System (URS) data and 
National Outcome Measures (NOMS), and case studies highlighting 
important themes and issues relating to State CMHS BG implementation.
    This evaluation is also seeking to measure the effectiveness of the 
CMHS BG through a variety of infrastructure indicators and NOMS 
measures. Infrastructure refers to the resources, systems, and policies 
that support the nation's public mental health service delivery system, 
and is a potential contributor to significant State behavioral health 
system outcomes. Examples of infrastructure include staff training, 
consumer involvement in the State mental health system, policy changes, 
and service availability. Outcomes related to infrastructure and the 
NOMS were included in the program logic model that has been developed 
and are expected to be examined through the data collection strategies 
listed above.
    Infrastructure indicators that can be measured in this evaluation, 
for which some form of data can be collected include:

<bullet> Range of available services within a State
<bullet> Capacity (<greek-i> of persons served)
<bullet> Specialized services (such as co-occurring disorders)
<bullet> Number of persons served by evidence-based practices (EBPs)
<bullet> Staff credentialing (identify patterns)
<bullet> Program accreditation (as a quality marker)
<bullet> Staff/workforce development (TA & training available for State 
staff)
<bullet> Connections with other agencies (e.g., MOUs, joint funding, 
joint appointments)
<bullet> Policy changes initiated
<bullet> Policy changes completed
<bullet> Consumer involvement

    Two data collection strategies will be used for this evaluation: 
Two (2) open-ended interviews and four (4) web-based surveys. 
Interviews will be conducted with Federal staff involved in the 
administration of the CMHS BG and State staff from all States and 
Territories involved in their State's implementation of the CMHS BG 
program. The two interview guides, one for Federal staff and one for 
State staff, range from 54 to 94 open-ended questions. The Federal 
staff interview is expected to take one hour to complete while the 
State staff interview is expected to take two hours on average to 
complete, and can be done over two sessions. Because of the relatively 
small number of Federal and State staff participating in the 
evaluation, interviews are an optimal data collection strategy to 
gather the extensive qualitative data needed for the evaluation while 
minimizing reporting burden. Federal staff stakeholders will be 
interviewed in person due to their close proximity to the interviewers 
and State staff stakeholder interviews will be conducted via conference 
call. State Mental Health Agency (SMHA) Commissioners will select those 
State staff who are knowledgeable about the CMHS BG for participation 
in the interviews. It is anticipated that, at a minimum, a State 
Planner, State Data Analyst, and the SMHA Commissioner will 
participate.
    The four (4) web-based surveys will be distributed nationally to 
State Planning Council Chairs, State Planning Council Members, CMHS BG 
Regional Reviewers, and CMHS BG Monitoring Site Visitors. The web-based 
surveys will be tailored so that each of the four different stakeholder 
groups will receive survey questions designed to capture their specific 
knowledge of and experience with the CMHS BG. It is estimated that any 
one individual stakeholder will require one hour to complete their own 
survey, which contains a range of 22 to 42 mostly fill-in-the blank 
type questions. Each member of the four major stakeholder groups will 
submit their responses to the survey online over a three-week period.
    Table 1 summarizes the estimate of the total time burden to Federal 
and State staff stakeholders resulting from the interviews. Table 2 
summarizes the estimate of the total time burden to Planning Council 
members, Regional Reviewers, and Monitoring Site Visitors resulting 
from completion of the web-based surveys. Table 3 summarizes the total 
reporting burden for all data collection strategies.

                               Table 1.--Estimated Reporting Burden of Interviews
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                                                                                                     Estimated
                           Respondent                                Number of     Average hours   total burden
                                                                    respondents    per interview      (hours)
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State Mental Health Agency Commissioner.........................              59               2             118
State Planners..................................................              59               2             118
State Data Analysts.............................................              59               2             118
Federal CMHS Block Grant Staff..................................              26               1              26
                                                                 -----------------------------------------------
    Total Burden................................................             203  ..............             380
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                            Table 2.--Estimated Reporting Burden of Web-Based Surveys
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                                                                                                     Estimated
                           Respondent                                Number of     Average hours   total burden
                                                                    respondents     per survey        (hours)
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Planning Council Members........................................           1,700               1           1,700
Regional Block Grant Reviewers..................................              35               1              35
Monitoring Site Visitors........................................              28               1              28
                                                                 -----------------------------------------------
    Total Burden................................................           1,763  ..............           1,763
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 Table 3.--Estimated Reporting Burden of all Data Collection Strategies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                             Estimated
                Data collection strategy                   total burden
                                                              (hours)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interviews..............................................             380
Web-based Surveys.......................................           1,763
                                                         ---------------
    Total Burden........................................           2,143
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    This Federal Register Notice is focused on the interviews and 
surveys that will be administered to the CMHS BG stakeholders as those 
methods of data collection require OMB approval. It is anticipated that 
in future independent evaluations of the CMHS BG Program focus will be 
given to the NOMS and their implications for program performance and 
goals.
    Send comments to Summer King, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer, 
Room 7-1044, One Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857. Written 
comments should be received within 60 days of this notice.

    Dated: January 5, 2007.
Elaine Parry,
Acting Director, Office of Program Services.
 [FR Doc. E7-310 Filed 1-11-07; 8:45 am]
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